


Duct Taped With Love

by PennedByLynn



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Care Package, College, College Student Lydia Martin, Established Relationship, F/M, FBI Agent Stiles Stilinski, Flash Forward, Fluff, Long-Distance Relationship, One Shot, Post series finale, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:41:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27095959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PennedByLynn/pseuds/PennedByLynn
Summary: Stiles sends Lydia a care package during her final year at MIT, causing her to reflect on their relationship.In which Stiles is thoughtful as ever, Lydia is a hard working college senior, and the two lovebirds are making this long distance thing work. A brief one-shot set roughly a year after the series finale.
Relationships: Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 11
Kudos: 77





	Duct Taped With Love

As Lydia’s boots clicked across campus cobblestones, she couldn’t help but sigh. Fall in Massachusetts wasn’t so different from Beacon Hills. The brisk air, the changing leaves, the sun sinking below the horizon at an increasingly rapid rate. It was enough to make her homesick.

Her time at MIT had been a whirlwind. After the trauma of being caught up in all out war against her guidance counselor and fellow classmates, she’d been ready to focus on something new. Unfortunately, said war had cost her her first semester at college.

On the bright side, deferring until Spring Semester meant that she and Stiles were finally able to take the cross-country road trip that they’d planned. Fresh out of the FBI Training Program, he used his gap week to move Lydia into her dorm at MIT. She smiled fondly as she remembered the seven days of playlist battles, 24-hour diners, and at least one motel that gave the Glen Capri a run for its money.

In an effort to maintain her original graduation date, Lydia had requested permission from the dean to increase her maximum course load this semester. Her request for spring semester had been denied due to an existing policy: no student in their first semester was allowed to exceed 18 units. Her frustration only fueled her work ethic. She’d never been one to back down from a challenge.

She’d walked out of the dean’s office and straight to his assistant’s desk where she’d made an appointment for May 25th, the official last day of the academic semester. She’d returned with her unofficial transcript boasting all A’s for her 18-unit course load and the dean had reluctantly granted permission for her to take 21 units in the fall.

Though Lydia was glad for the challenge, it was beginning to take its toll. She was used to being the smartest one in any given classroom at Beacon Hills High but as a 19 year old senior at MIT, she sometimes felt overwhelmed.

 _“Smartest one at Beacon Hills,”_ she chuckled to herself and shook her head. She could actually see the offended look taking shape on Stiles’ face. Visions flashed of a cheesy high school dance and a young boy complimenting her on her intelligence for the first time in her adolescent life. It had always been Stiles, hadn’t it? No one else had ever seen through her perfectly manicured facade.

Perhaps Stiles wouldn’t be so offended after all.

Thankfully they had plans for a FaceTime date tonight so she only had to imagine her boyfriend for a bit longer. Between her classes and his somewhat erratic schedule at the Bureau, even tonight’s call had been hard to arrange.

They’d technically been long distance for the majority of their relationship now. Sometimes Lydia mourned the wasted high school years but they weren’t truly a waste, were they? They’d been filled with late-night adventures and detective work. They’d been marked by frequent study sessions in the school library. They’d been crammed with pack meetings and battles and a lifetime of inside jokes. Somewhere along the way, she’d started seeing Stiles as someone other than Scott’s spazzy friend who had a crush on her. She’d started falling in love.

No, she thought, it certainly wouldn’t be fair to think of those years as a waste.

She pulled her phone out to switch off Do Not Disturb mode and saw a delivery notification for a package. That was odd. She hadn’t done any online shopping this past week… perhaps her mom was sending her some winter clothes.

Changing course, she cut across the quad and headed for the mail center.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Wiping her brow, Lydia stared at the rather enormous box now sitting at the foot of her bed. She couldn’t help picturing a young, buzzcut Stiles trying to fit through the door with her massive birthday present. How had he even managed to ship something like this? It couldn’t have been cheap.

Part of her brain was making a mental note to scold Stiles about such extravagant gift giving but mostly, she was just plain excited.

The box wouldn't have looked special to anyone else: a plain cardboard box covered with far too much duct tape. Now that Roscoe was back in his possession, Lydia assumed he was once again ordering the tape in bulk.

She grabbed the scissors out of the Beacon Hills High mug that served as her pen holder and started carefully cutting into the box. Lying on top was a piece of notebook paper that simply stated: “I miss you. Love, Stiles.”

Lydia promptly pinned the note to her bulletin board, replacing the flyer for the Young Professionals seminar that she’d attended last week. Turning her attention back to the box, she noticed that all of the items were wrapped in mass amounts of tissue paper and yes, more duct tape. She couldn’t help rolling her eyes.

The first bundle turned out to be an official FBI Bureau crewneck. Lydia was already trying to figure out which skirt she could pair the loose-fitting sweatshirt with for classes tomorrow. She hugged it close to her chest and allowed herself to longingly pretend she was wrapped in Stiles’ arms instead.

Speaking of Stiles, her calendar app chimed to remind her that their call would be starting in 5 minutes. She couldn’t wait to unwrap the remaining gifts so she could thank him for his thoughtfulness. Maybe she could use the gap between tomorrow’s afternoon classes to put together a care package of her own.

The next surprise was in the form of gummy bears, calling to mind late night study sessions with Stiles. She could still remember the week before their senior finals when he’d shown up at her door with the largest bag of gummy bears she’d ever seen.

In what appeared to be the smallest bundle was exactly two highlighters: a green and a yellow. There was a post-it note attached that read: “For the girl who’s too smart to need a color for Unsolved.”

After that, she pulled out a tin of her favorite tea, a framed photo from Stiles’ trip home this summer, and a pair of white gloves that reminded her of the ones she’d lost sophomore year.

There was also a beautiful knit scarf and a package of pumpkin spice cookies from the bakery she’d loved in Virginia.

And then, at the bottom of the package was the only item not wrapped in tissue paper and duct tape: a pillow.

Her brows drew together in confusion as she searched the box for a missing post-it note or some other explanation. It was a nice enough pillow but she certainly had enough sitting on her bed.

She was drawn out of her pondering by her calendar alarm. As she started the FaceTime call, she noted with amusement the simultaneous ringing of someone’s iphone out in the hall. Why other people didn’t change their tone from the default setting was beyond her.

_“FaceTime Unavailable”_

Lydia frowned at her screen. It wasn’t like Stiles to miss a call, especially one they’d scheduled. Maybe he’d been forced to work last minute? But then why wouldn’t he call her?

Just as she was starting to grow concerned, she heard a knock on the door. Turning to answer it, she dialed Stiles again. Lydia nearly dropped her phone upon opening the door.

“Surprise!” said Stiles, arms gesturing wildly above his head.

Lydia couldn’t contain the squeal that escaped her mouth as she leapt into his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Lydia receives a care package from Stiles while in college.
> 
> I'm slowly but surely attempting to get back into writing! This was a prompt given to me by my best friend. Stydia is probably my all time favorite OTP and I had so much fun writing this. Let me know what you think?! It's my first time posting anything in a couple of years so feedback would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> I'm going to try to be a bit more active on here. If you have any Teen Wolf related prompts/requests please feel free to leave them here! I can't promise I'll get to them but I'll do my best.


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